Assignment Design: Academic Integrity

Academic integrity is the shared responsibility of both students and faculty. While students must become fully knowledgeable of the Code of Academic Conduct, produce their own work, and encourage honesty and integrity among fellow students, faculty members’ responsibilities are both policy-related and pedagogical.

From an academic policy perspective, faculty members have the responsibility to:

• Review classroom expectations concerning all aspects of academic honesty
• Describe those expectations clearly in the class syllabus
• Inform a student directly of any charges of academic dishonesty
• Apply the Code of Academic Conduct procedures in a consistent manner
• Determine the academic consequence of a student’s academic dishonesty

Pedagogically, however, instructors should consider academic integrity as they are designing their courses, creating assessments, and assigning projects. Faculty members can reduce incidents of academic dishonesty by:

• Building support for researched writing
• Clearly communicating policies & expectations
• Teaching writing conventions and allow students to practice with low- or no-stakes assessments
• Avoiding recycled or formulaic assignments
• Engaging students in the process of assessment and evaluation
• Discussing problems and offering strategies - within the context of the course, and to individual students
• Determining if papers are the result of a deliberate attempt to deceive or the product of novice writing
• Reporting all cases of academic dishonesty

Create a classroom culture of integrity by facilitating key conversations in your classroom:

1. Discuss academic integrity in your discipline or field. What does integrity look like in your field? What are the professional consequences of cheating? Are there high-profile examples of cheating you can share?
2. Clearly articulate what trust and fairness look like in your classroom. What expectations do you have of a fair and level playing field among your students? What are you expectations of fairness between you and your students?
3. Explain why academic integrity matters to you. Why do you personally care about academic integrity?

Institute classroom testing best practices. Small changes in how you design and administer tests can make a big difference. The COD Testing Center guide provides tips and tricks for combating some of the top security issues in classroom testing.

Consider creating structured opportunities for students to learn from their “ethical failures.” In “The Learning Cycle: Harnessing The Power Of An Ethical Failure,” Tricia Bertram Gallant identifies a variety of structured experiences you could use to help students learn from their ethical failure, listing their advantages and disadvantages (38-42).

Academic Integrity - Dean of Students Office 

• Academic Policies and Procedures
• Report Academic Dishonesty
• Student Rights and Responsibilities
• Procedures for Violations of the Code of Academic Conduct

COD Library Academic Honesty Guide

Resources for creating a culture of academic honesty, deterring plagiarism, and encouraging academic honesty. Includes the following webinar content:

• Testing & Proctoring Best Practices What are the top security issues in classroom testing and what can you do to prevent cheating on tests and exams? Presentation Slides
• Preventing, Identifying and Dealing with Plagiarism How do you define, discuss, and deal with plagiarism in your classes? This webinar will explore student motivations for plagiarism present best practices for supporting student academic integrity. Presentation Slides
• Plagiarism Resistant Assignments What assignment characteristics lend themselves to plagiarism? Learn what they are and how to avoid them. Presentation Slides
• Creating a Classroom Culture of Integrity Prepare for the semester by building integrity into your classroom culture – whether you’re teaching online or face-to-face. In this session, we’ll discuss honor codes, definitions of cheating, and keys to creating a culture of honesty, integrity and accountability. Presentation Slides

COD Library Plagiarism and Writing with Sources Tutorial

The goal of the plagiarism tutorial is to provide students with information that will help them distinguish between plagiarism and novice writing; understand the purpose of citations; explain the differences between summarizing, paraphrasing and patchwriting; and identify resources for successful academic writing.